Nick Pinkerton

It's an overloaded, overwrought, profligate production inclined to hysteria and, in cumulative effect, something like being pelted with scenes until buried alive - but it helps keep it from being boring.

Where faux-empowering "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" confines sexual power play to the old rape-revenge matrix, Haywire is a real war-of-the-sexes tournament, briskly paced with a tickling sense of black humor.

The forced horseplay is entirely without ensemble chemistry, probably because the leads were hired principally as singers/musicians, as this, the directorial debut of former Law & Order: Criminal Intent star Vincent D'Onofrio, is that rarest of mongrel movies: a slasher/musical.

Neither intellectually nor viscerally engaging, what The Divide finally offers audiences is the not-terribly-edifying, stagnant experience of being locked in a basement with a pack of assholes.

No one, however, could mistake Contraband for anything but what it is: a shift-job genre movie - not a bad day's work, content to match the blocky trudge of its star rather than attempt panache.

Eldard, with eyes projecting adolescent vulnerability and a body lost to awkward midlife chub, is enough to redeem Cuesta's indie commonplaces.

Luxuriantly-lashed Dekker leads the most attractive cast of small-towners this side of "Twin Peaks" but, though the setting is nearly as artificial as Lynch's, the melodrama is played quite straightforwardly here, even as the dialogue frequently borders on parody.

Our subject retains a noticeable streak of pride in his expertise, though falters when discussing the killing of women. Hoping for his own salvation, the converted killer now claims the scales have fallen from his eyes, but his executioner's hood remains in place to the end - as does the mephitic air of timeless evil that hangs over El Sicario.

Adventures is an awesome movie mechanism, but awe comes at a cost. The Tintin character is something like a blank spot at the movie's center, most vivid (unfortunately) as a plucky, priggish motivational speaker when he coaches Haddock out of a drinking problem.

Such an abundance of "epiphanies," one after another, amount to a tactical assault on viewer sentiments. The deluge of tears is Daldry's idea of pathos, but to these eyes, it's Oscar-trolling 9/11 kitsch.

If the M:I films are immune to the tarnish on the Cruise brand, it's precisely because their spectacle requires us to be impressed by Ethan Hunt, not to like him.

More often, Mekas's focus on "names" comes off as a cloistered insensitivity to the wider world.

Rather than viewing moral chaos from the eye of a storm, director David Pomes watches his movie blow off into the storm itself.

Lackluster screenwriting and the absence of actorly communion are breezed past with monotonous banter, as is the fleetingly visible plot.

Once that point is made, this push-pull settles into a certain lulling monotony, wandering a wilderness of wires, cooling towers, and a thousand other inscrutable devices, but it is a monotony with an undertone of menace.

Like one of its yakuza bigs, Outrage commands respect but no affection.

Though the PR bit is right on, Khodorkovsky goes some way toward questioning the guilt.

It is suggested that Trungpa was in possession of yeshe chölwa-the title's "crazy wisdom" - and, as a sort of holy fool, his apparent misbehavior could be read as a manifestation of higher spiritual truths. If you're determined to see something, it's easy to find it - so those inclined to interest in Tibetan Buddhism will discover something here.

Améris's recipe here calls for everything in moderation, resulting in a movie that never threatens to offend nor, particularly, to delight, though it does offer a good view on a modestly charming actors' duet.

Arthur was made, in co-production with Sony, by Aardman Animations, the U.K. company best known for Nick Park's Wallace & Gromit shorts, and the character animation has some of the same homely charm.

Really, the movie has absolutely everything except the light touch required for unaffected charm - the mugging is savage - a single piece of memorable original music, or a production number that's celebratory rather than trampling.

Rid of Me is a bad movie, but at least it's a flailing, innocent badness.

The film is flecked with moments of interest, though this decidedly minor and not particularly cinematographic affair is clearly best suited to television.

It's impossible to imagine how anything this convoluted could have already earned a sequel, but it has.

Weixler is an alert, mobile comedienne who deserves better than this awkward pause, nervous stammer, social-anxiety comedy.

Given something as simple as Theseus's rousing prebattle speech, maximalist Singh is helpless, but when he gets whole armies in on the act, you've got something to behold.

This is intended as one of those kid's comeuppance stories, in which a new maturity is won through contact with salt-of-the-earth types and honest labor but is done with an almost total lack of charm.

It might be sufficient that Dog Sweat exists at all - but only if you believe intention trumps execution.